


The mess that we'll become

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Mentions of Violence, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes three days for the idea to occur to her.</p>
<p>If Joffrey thinks she and Willas are dating, and Tyene thinks she and Willas are dating, why shouldn't they at least pretend to date?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't tell me it's a lie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theMightyPen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theMightyPen/gifts).



Sansa's face is still bruised and swollen when she arrives at Jon and Marg's for brunch, and Willas' stomach turns at the sight. He's known Sansa since she was fourteen, Marg's little friend who blushed whenever him or Garlan or Lorry walked into the room, and he doesn't understand how anyone could want to do her harm. She can be infuriating sometimes, yes - she's snobby and finicky and vain - but she's essentially a nice girl, and a sweet one at that, and even if she weren't,  _nobody_  deserves what Joff Baratheon did to her.

It had been a night for terrible break ups - Sansa got smacked across the ballroom floor for disagreeing with Joffrey in public, Willas got slapped so hard for refusing to go along with one of Tyene's schemes that he fell into the fountain at the bottom of the stairs into the garden, and both of them came away with as much wounded pride as they did bruises. Tywin Lannister's Christmas balls are always hugely entertaining, but it's usually the Lannisters themselves providing the drama, and Willas has never been as hurt and ashamed as he was when Garlan and Lorry had to lift him out of the fountain, because his leg gave out. 

Sansa, well, he can only imagine how Sansa felt, with her lip and her nose dripping blood onto her lovely white ballgown and Joffrey standing over her, ready to hit her again if her brothers and his uncles hadn't intervened. 

She seems to be calmer than he would have expected, more settled - her hands don't shake the way his own do, and she does nothing to indicate that her face is still sore, even though it must be. Willas knows  _he's_ still sore, sore enough that he's had to use his wheelchair for the past week since the party. Sansa is completely composed, though, smiling quietly the whole way through the meal, never once giving even the slightest hint that there was anything wrong. Willas admires it, but he doesn't trust it, because he's been there himself - that's why he asks her to go for a walk with him in the park over the road.

She's the only person who doesn't make even good-natured jokes about his not being able to walk, and he appreciates that. Even Garlan's gentle teasing gets old after a while, and being with Sansa, who never makes a big deal out of his wheelchair or his brace or his crutches but who's always considerate of his not being able to keep up, is just very easy. He likes it. He likes  _her,_ which is why he's worried about her.

"Want to talk about it?"

She smiles, but says nothing until she's sitting on one of the blue-painted benches beside the playground, tucking her feet up under herself and folding her arms over her stomach. 

"Joff's been like that for months," she confides, leaning in close once Willas has settled his chair as close to the bench as he can. "He never liked it when I disagreed with him, but it's been worse since I started working with Jeyne and Cley and Smalljon. He didn't want me to work at all. Wanted me to marry him and stay at home and be a good little wife."

Willas can't help but laugh at that, because the idea of Sansa  _not_  making clothes is completely ridiculous - she's wonderful at it, and has been making her own clothes for as long as Willas has known her. Her and her friends have only been in business for eighteen months and they already have a substantial list of regulars (Willas knows in detail because Garlan's Leo does their books, and she's always proud of her bright young clients), which makes it doubly ridiculous to expect her to be the obedient Stepford Wife, sitting at home and making tea.

"I refused his proposal," she says, twirling one loose curl around her index finger. "He asked me to marry him with this  _enormous_  ring, a monstrosity of a thing that I'd only be able to wear when I wasn't working which is ridiculous-"

"Sansa," he says, reaching over to take her hand. "I know."

And he does - he knows what it's like to never live up to what someone you love wants from you. Tyene always wanted him to  _keep up,_ and he couldn't - that had been the cause of their fight at the ball. She'd told him she was sick and tired of not having to slow down for him, because he was too sore to dance more than twice with her, and then she'd lost her temper when he'd pointed out that she never  _did_  slow down for him, that she always left him behind and came back when she got bored-

"Look at me," Sansa says, squeezing his fingers. "Nattering on as if I'm the only person who's ever had a bad break-up. Are you and Tyene...?"

"Over," he says, shrugging, because he's more angry than upset, and Sansa doesn't need that right now.

He was with Tyene for nearly ten years, though, and while he knew this was coming, he also knows that they could have stopped it if he'd caught it sooner. Ty's main problem was and always has been his leg, and while he's always felt guilt for holding her back, he can see now that he never  _did._  Ty always went ahead and did as Ty wanted, and he could either keep up or be left behind - she didn't care either way. He can see that now, and while it  hurts like hell, yeah, he's  _furious_ that he let himself be treated that way, as something she was settling for. 

"It's been coming for a while," he adds, tugging her hand and forcing a smile. "Come on, ice-cream?"

"In December?" she laughs, unfolding from the bench and nudging her hip against his shoulder. "Come on, then, but only if you don't tell everyone when I go back for seconds."

 

* * *

 

Sansa doesn't see Willas again until after the New Year, and when she does, she has to apologise to him.

He's on crutches today instead of in his wheelchair, which is a good sign - she knows that his leg aches in the cold, and it's absolutely freezing today, so he must actually be doing his physiotherapy exercises, for once. She knows he doesn't like doing them - apparently they're really boring, which she can well believe, having seen Bran over the years, but all the same, she knows he hates using his wheelchair, and he can keep on his feet if he just  _does_ them.

"So," she says, pushing a cup of coffee across the table and hoping he hasn't taken offence to her choosing a booth instead of a table - she knows he hates people fussing over him, but she  _also_  knows that it's easier on him when his leg has some support, which the deep benches of the booth offers. He looks relieved as he settles in, which is good, and smiles when he leans over the coffee to breathe deep while he unwinds his scarf and pulls off his coat. "I owe you an apology. Promise not to be mad?"

"Depends on what you did," he says, looking at her over his glasses as he takes the first sip of his coffee. "Kill anyone?"

"I may have let Joffrey believe you and I are dating," she admits. "Someone saw us at the ice-cream place that day, and he accused me of having been cheating on him-"

(which had always been more Joffrey's thing than Sansa's, from Alayaya to Rosamund to Randa who really hadn't known he had a girlfriend to all the half dozen other girls she'd caught him with over their six years together)

"-and while I could convince him of the truth of that, it was easier to just let him believe I'd moved on. I'm sorry, I know-"

"It's fine, Sansa," he says, waving aside her protests and smiling sheepishly. "I may have done something similar with Tyene when I ran into her the other day, so it seems our apologies are cancelling one another out, I think."

 

* * *

 

It takes three days for the idea to occur to her.

If Joffrey thinks she and Willas are dating, and Tyene thinks she and Willas are dating, why shouldn't they at least _pretend_  to date?

 

* * *

Sansa suggests it, and he laughs. He sincerely thinks she's joking, until he sees the pink creeping up her neck and into her cheeks.

"Just for a while," she explains. "Just to get Joff and Tyene off our backs, you know?"

He does know - it's not been a full month since Ty dumped him, and he knows that he's been moping, but he doesn't think that's unreasonable. He also knows, thanks to the miracle of Facebook, that Ty's been living it up all over Christmas and the New Year, to the point where he's blocked her, two of her sisters, and her cousin, just to avoid the pictures. 

So yeah, he can only imagine how far Joffrey Baratheon is going to get at Sansa, so he totally understands why she'd want to do this, but... Does she really think pretending to go out with  _him_  is going to annoy Joff? It'll probably make him laugh so hard he'll crack a rib, because Joff Baratheon is one of the few people who doesn't even pretend not to look down on Willas because he's disabled.

"Are you sure about this?" he says instead of laughing in Sansa's face some more.

"Just a couple of outings," she promises. "We pretend they're dates, nobody has to know any different, we prove to Joff and Tyene that we don't need them... What could possibly go wrong?"


	2. You'll need a sugar fix, baby

It starts to go wrong almost immediately.

 

* * *

 

**NOT-DATE #1**

"I hate these things," Willas says idly, his arm across the back of Sansa's chair and his good leg tucked under the bad, to give it some support. The chairs in the boxes in the opera house are more comfortable than those in the stalls, and they're certainly roomier, but they offer precisely zero support for an injury like his, and considering how bloody inaccessibly the old ruin is, he can't come to the opera in his wheelchair. He's lodged formal complaints a dozen times before, much to Tyene's annoyance, and none of them ever came to anything. "There's never any fun with this crowd."

Sansa shushes him, turned just slightly towards him with her head close to his. "You're being rude," she warns him, but she's smiling, and he knows that she finds the opera crowd just as boring as he is. Problem is, their families are heavily involved with half a dozen charities each that benefit from the opera society, and since neither of them have what their grandparents consider  _real jobs,_ well, it's the two of them who have to come to these things.

Granny is always telling Willas that once he gets a  _real_ office, she'll start letting him off when it comes to these awful benefit nights, and no matter how many times he reminds her that his spacious, wide-windowed office on the ground floor of the house  _is_ the real thing, she never gets the message. Pops isn't much better, always grumbling that Willas would do better as an equine vet, which yes, he  _did_ train for, but he likes breeding and training horses better than injecting them and cutting them open, thanks.

He's met both Hoster Tully and Rickard Stark a few times, enough times to guess that neither of them approve of Sansa making clothes for a living, no matter that she studied design in college and is  _good_ at what she does. She made the dress she's wearing right now, for example, simple and elegant and perfectly fitted, in a lovely deep blue silk that looks night-black when the lights dim, especially with the sparkle of her bracelet like stars against it when she puts her hand in her lap. 

"I'm not being rude," he tells her as the tenor begins to sing on the stage below them, leaning in closer so as not to disturb the people in the boxes on either side of them. "I'm being  _honest,_ Sansa, you're just as bored as I am-"

She presses a hand over his mouth, and he can see her smile even in the low lighting, just like he can see Joffrey Baratheon, sitting in the Lannister box to their left, behind Sansa, watching them instead of watching the opera.

"You're being  _rude,"_ she warns him again, not taking her fingers from his lips, and he reaches up without thinking to take her hand and draw it, curled together with his own, into his lap. She settles easily against his side, warm and smelling of something pretty and floral and sharp, and turns her head up just enough to whisper "I do agree, though," into his ear, which makes him laugh - he turns it into a cough just in time for a lull in the music, drawing curious stares from all corners, but he doesn't particularly care.

The opera drones on, and Willas spends half the time pretending to have a terrible cough because Sansa keeps up a running commentary of  _awful,_ completely wrong translations the whole way through, and he only just makes it to the intermission without laughing outright.

It's the same for the second act, except this time he can't quite stop himself from giggling like a schoolboy when Sansa's commentary turns a bit saucy, and the funny looks they get are worth it, because Sansa giggles herself silly right along with him, pink-cheeked and smiling as they stumble down the stairs and out to the waiting car.

He's fairly sure that they  _lost_ money for their grandparents' charities tonight, but considering that this is the most fun he's had on a date in years, he doesn't particularly care.

(He corrects that assessment to  _most fun he's ever had on a_ _fake date_ , but only as an afterthought.)

 

* * *

 

**NOT-DATE #9**

Sansa loves dancing, but she prefers the look of shock on Tyene Martell's face as Willas laughs for the third time in fifteen minutes, so she stays right where she is, perched on the edge of the table beside Willas in his wheelchair.

The wedding has been raging for hours now, and it's two in the morning and Sansa's just tipsy enough to slide down off the table and balance herself on Willas' good leg, to enjoy the warmth of his arm slipping around her waist to hold her steady, and to tuck her face against the side of his neck and laugh when he tells her that people are staring.

Sansa made a new dress for the wedding, because when she bought the one she originally intended on wearing, she'd thought she'd be here as Joff's plus one. Instead, she's here on Myrcella's invitation, and Willas is  _her_ plus one. He looks really good in a three-piece suit, especially now that he's had a couple of drinks and his cheeks are flushed and he's loosened his tie just enough for her to open the top three buttons of his shirt and slip her hand inside, to rest over his collarbone.

"Sansa," he warns, his voice soft and the arm around her waist tightening just a little. "Enough. Come on, sweetheart. Let's get you to bed."

She laughs when he doesn't even make her get up, just heaves her legs over the arm of his chair and turning for the doors - she's not sure how he reaches the rims, but he does, and she cheers him on as he gets them into the lift.

It's Myrcella Baratheon's wedding to Trystane Martell, and Sansa had thought she was going to be here as Joff's plus one.

She slips from Willas' lap to sit on the floor of the lift as soon as the doors ding shut, and she misses the warmth of him straight away - she's the far side of tipsy, she realises, and giggles to realise it.

"I think we made an impression," he says, shaking his head and tugging his tie all the way off, tossing her one end to help her stand up. "I don't think anyone stopped looking at us since Myrcella and Trys left, to be honest."

Of course, Willas would have been here as Tyene's plus one, in another life, but Sansa isn't going to think about that. She just knows that she's had a wonderful day at what should have been an awful event, that she looks really damn good - she made the dress herself, of  _course_ she looks good - and that Willas looks absolutely  _scrumptious_ in that suit with that look on his face and with his hair all rumpled like that.

She waits until they're safely tucked away in their room - a double, to keep up appearances, and because they're  _adults,_ they're not afraid to share a bed - to roll over and look him in the eye.

"Hello," he says quietly, and she's very aware that he's only wearing boxers - green ones - and a thin grey t-shirt that clings to his shoulders in the best way imaginable. 

"Hello," she says back. "Do you think it might feed the rumour mill a bit more if we were overheard having sex?"

He goes pink, and then he kisses her.

(It doesn't strike her as a mistake, to introduce sex into the equation, even though they've only been not-dating for five weeks and she usually waits at least six to introduce sex into a _real_ relationship. She reasons that they're both fully aware that this isn't a real relationship, and if it's not exactly casual sex, well, that's only because they know and trust one another, right?)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has um, grown in the telling?
> 
> Chapter title from "Come Get It Bae," by Pharrell and Miley Cyrus, previous chapter title from "Secret" by Delorentos, story title from "Casual Affair" by Panic! At the Disco.


	3. Don't panic, hold your nerve

**NOT-DATE #72**

Every single time, he plans on telling her that this, the sex, has to stop.

Every single time, he ends up with his head between her legs and her hands holding him as close as he can possibly go.

Not that he minds too much, at the time - sex with Sansa is  _wonderful,_ it really is, and in the moment, there's never anything on his mind but how beautiful she is and how much he wants to make her come.

And that's the problem, isn't it? This was never supposed to be the kind of relationship where he thinks of her as beautiful or where he daydreams of going down on her when he should be doing expense reports for the stables, but he does both, and he knows that that could be dangerous, in the long run.

Which is why, when Sansa arrives to discuss their plans for National Sunday, he's got a whole speech prepared, a speech which dies on the tip of his tongue when he opens the door to find her with her hair down and a hint of dark blue satin peeking out from under her coat.

An hour later, with his head resting on the dip of her spine, he tries to explain.

"We need to stop doing this," he says, aware of how husky his voice sounds but not wanting to seem nervous by clearing his throat. "The whole sex thing."

She starts to laugh, which she always does when he brings this up. He doesn't think she means it meanly, but it feels that way, because he really is concerned that they're losing track of what this thing between them is supposed to be. He knows it's his fault for agreeing to sleep with her at Trys' wedding, because she was drunk and he was too, but he wasn't  _as_ drunk, and he should have known better.

But he had been drunk, and she was as beautiful then, with her make up half wiped off and her hair a tangle on the pillow under her face, as she is now, naked in his bed with a smile on her face as she looks over her shoulder at him.

"I like having sex with you," she says easily, rolling onto her back and waiting for him to sit up. He's grateful when she pulls the sheet up over her breasts, because he needs to not be distracted just now.

"And I like having sex with you," he admits, more shy than ashamed, which he probably should be.  _This isn't supposed to feel real,_ he reminds himself,  _it's only supposed to_ look _real._ "But it's not... Sansa, you're one of my best friends. I don't want that to be ruined at the end of all this."

"It won't be," she says, and he wishes he could believe that, but he can't. Tyene had been his best friend all the way through school, and their going out had just sort of happened organically, as if it had always been  _meant_ to happen. Now, he can't string together two words to make small talk with her when they run into one another. He doesn't know if Sansa knows how bloody  _hard_ that is, to lose a friend that way. "We're mature enough to handle a sexual relationship without going all sappy over it, aren't we?"

He looks at her, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, and he wishes he shared her confidence.

"Alright then," he sighs, defeated as always by her unassailable self-assurance. "National Sunday - what's the plan?"

 

* * *

 

**NOT-DATE #73**

National Sunday - the third Sunday in July, the Sunday of the Grand National at Duskendale - is blisteringly hot, and Sansa is glad she chose to wear an actual hat, rather than one of the concoctions Cley's been churning out for the last couple of months. He's been making quite the name for himself as a milliner, and Sansa's glad of it. His dad gave him enough stick for going for that apprenticeship rather than going to uni, and she's just relieved for his sake that it worked out.

She startles when Willas adjusts her hat a little, looking flushed but otherwise composed in his exquisitely cut navy blazer. Jeyne does wonderful work, in Sansa's opinion, and she's just as glad to work with her as she is with Cley and Smalljon, no matter Jeyne's own opinion on her work. 

"You were miles away," he says, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, almost lost in his beard. "Everything alright, sweetheart?"

The terms of endearment are a relatively new thing between them, something that Willas started in on maybe three months ago and which threw her, at first. She's come to like them, though, almost as much as she likes the way Willas never thinks before taking her hand or slipping an arm around her waist - everything had been a production with Joff, from the frequency of their dates to how he touched her in public, but Willas is naturally affectionate in ways that surprise her constantly, ways that jar her sometimes because she never expects them.

She thinks that this, this easy girlfriend-boyfriend thing they're pretending at, is the most dangerous thing about it, far more than the increasingly fantastic sex they have every time they're alone. And the sex  _is_ fantastic - she's only had three boyfriends, but none of them were ever as enthusiastic about the female orgasm as Willas is, and she can hardly walk when she climbs out of his bed, every single time - but she can handle sex. She doesn't think she can handle how natural his arm feels across her lower back or how easy it is to lean into his side as they make their way through the crowds, though, or how he calls her  _sweetheart_ as if it means nothing.

Because it does. It means a  _lot._ You don't just call someone sweetheart for the hell of it, unless you're one of those weird people like Sansa's aunt Lysa, who calls everyone pet names. 

She doesn't dare say anything, though, because Willas is her best shield against Joffrey, who's been creeping again these past couple of weeks, and he's her best friend, too, except for Jeyne and Smalljon and Cley, who know the full story and keep telling her she's completely mad.

"I'm fine," she assures him, even though she's increasingly not. She's not afraid that the sex will fuck them up ( _excellent choice of words there, Sanny)_ but she  _is_ afraid that she'll forget that this isn't real if he doesn't stop acting like it  _is,_ with his deliveries of flowers to her at work and his hand on the small of her back and the way he shifts just so to get between her and Joff's line of sight when they break into the winner's enclosure, because  _of course_ one of his horses won the National.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Don't Panic' by Molotov Jukebox


	4. Break involuntary ties

**NOT-DATE #72**

Willas' birthday is right at the end of August, and as usual, his wishes for a quiet night are completely ignored.

He supposes he can't really blame Mum and Dad this year - a boy only turns thirty once, after all - but he really does wish he could've just gone out to dinner with a few friends and then...

And then, his fantasy continues, go home with Sansa and spend the night in bed with her. He can't keep himself from thinking things like that, or being happy about the bright pink toothbrush that appears in the glass on his bathroom sink, or the spare stockings and knickers that she keeps in the otherwise empty nightstand on the other side of his bed.

He puts up with the massive, flamboyant party Mum and Dad throw for him, out in the big house in Highgarden, because it makes them happy, and it's a good excuse for Sansa to wear something formal and lovely. She outdoes herself, in the most gorgeous shade of green he's ever seen, slinky and low at the back so that his hand is pressed against warm, soft skin when he holds her close. She wears her hair down, too, so that nobody else can see his hand on her back, and that only makes him want to hold her even closer.

So he does. It's his birthday, and maybe he has to pretend that this is all a game, but it's his _birthday_ and he thinks he might be in love with Sansa, and he doesn't think it's a game anymore. He doesn't think it's been a game for a long time, to be honest.

He makes nice with all the people Mum and Dad invited - all of Leonette's siblings and their plus ones, Marg's massive circle of friends, Loras' weird sporty friends with Renly like a big, chatty weed in the middle of them - and eventually gets to his own friends, Sansa beside him the whole time, warm against his side and almost as tall as him, in those obscene shoes. They're green, too, and he wonders what they'd look like over his shoulders while he went down on her.

He just about lasts to the cake - he even makes a speech, something low-key and self-effacing that makes everyone laugh, and he sits with Humfrey and Torwin and Amarys and Arys, Sansa perched on his good leg with her arm around his shoulders and his hand tucked against the dip of her spine. She barely bats an eyelid when he nuzzles against her neck, breathing in the floral-sharp scent of her perfume, and turns her head for a kiss when he lifts his face from the crook of her shoulder.

He could manage if it weren't for things like this. The little kisses, the way she squeezes his shoulder when he's in his chair and someone passes comment. This and the sex, that's what got to him, got under his skin and made him fall-

No, he's not going to say it. He can say he might feel that way about her, but he's not going to outright admit it.

They drift outside not long after midnight, her arm linked through his so he can lean on her now that his leg it getting tired, and they wander about under the cloister for a while before they find themselves in Dad's study. Well, one of his studies - there are three, but this has always been Willas' favourite, half a conservatory and half a library, with big, soft armchairs instead of the rigid leather wingbacks in the upstairs study or the boxy chrome frame chairs in the one off Mum and Dad's suite.

Sansa climbs into his lap as soon as he sinks down into one of the armchairs, and while he wishes more than anything that they were at home in his bed so he could strip her naked and watch her face as she rides him, this will do. He prefers it when she's naked or in just some of that scandalous lingerie she wears so well, but he doesn't mind too much, not when she's kissing him with the taste of champagne on her tongue and riding him so slowly he thinks he's going to lose his _mind_ -

And then all his siblings, their plus ones, half a dozen cousins and their plus ones, plus most of his friends, come through the door in a massive conga line, and he genuinely thinks Sansa's going to die of embarrassment.

The next morning, Garlan nudges him in the ribs and asks when he's going to make an honest woman of Sansa, and Willas nearly cries because _he can't_ and it's _killing_ him.

 

* * *

 

**NOT-DATE #80**

Willas' leg has been really good for the last few days, which is why Sansa dragged him into bed and pulled him down on top of her when he arrived to get ready at the party. She loves when he's on top, and he can barely sit back in his chair, thanks to the way she clawed at his back.

He manages it, though, and he doesn't complain at all when she attaches the hubcaps she had Rickon throw together to the wheels of his chair so he can work his sixties Charles Xavier outfit to match her young Magneto. Her hair isn't quite what she wanted it to be (sex does that, especially  _really good_ sex), but she pulls on her helmet and knows it doesn't matter.

"Ready?" she asks, and he rolls his eyes and waves her on ahead of him. She winks over her shoulder and swishes aside her cape to give him a good look at her backside as she walks through the doors, knowing he'll be blushing something terrible behind her. 

She prefers to keep that little bit of distance (except when they're having sex, _stop thinking about how good he looks when you suck him off that is not helping_ ) because that means she can't snuggle into his side or run her fingers through her hair. Or, and here's the real problem, he can curl his hand over the small of her back and rub his thumb over-and-back across the tiny gap between her top and her trousers, or nuzzle the tip of his nose against the hollow under her ear and make her breath catch under her ribs.

It's  _too much,_ all of the time, so she tries her best to keep a little bit of distance between them. Unless they're having sex.

She ends up sitting in his lap, because she always does. She isn't drinking tonight - she never does if he's in his chair, just to be on the safe side - but he is, and he's as touchy-feely as he ever is after a few drinks, pulling her tight against him and kissing her neck, whisper-soft kisses and just the tiniest hint of teeth, the perfect combination to make her go to pieces, and she's so distracted by that that it doesn't click at first, when Leonette passes comment on her drinking lemonade all night.

 _"Something important to tell us?"_ and it doesn't fucking _click_ until the following morning, after Sansa's spent the night curled up half on top of Willas, and before she's fully awake she thinks  _when was my last period?_ and can't bloody  _remember._

"Willas," she says, bolting upright. "Willas, wake up, wake  _up-"_

He blinks at her blearily, smiling sleepily and reaching out to pull her back down, but she feels like throwing up because  _why can't she remember the last time she had her period,_ she knows for sure she didn't have one last month but she assumed that was just stress because she had that big work thing, the spread for the Independent's fashion column, and-

"Hey now," he says, sitting up and pressing against her back, winding an arm around her waist to pull her close. "What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I think- I can't  _remember-"_ and she doesn't want to but she starts crying, because she can't be  _pregnant,_ she's twenty-three and just starting her career and a  _baby_ doesn't fit into her plans, not yet.

He doesn't put the pieces together until she runs out, runs to the little shopping complex around the corner where there's a chemist, and comes back with four pregnancy tests, because none of them are guaranteed one hundred percent accurate, but if all four turn up the same result it has to be right, doesn't it?

Doesn't it?

Willas' face goes very, very pale when she pulls the boxes from the carrier bag and pulls the little white sticks from the boxes. She locks the bathroom door behind her, but she can hear him pull a chair close, probably against the wall so she doesn't knock into him when she comes out.

She pees and waits, but she can't stand looking at the four sticks lined up on the sink so she unlocks the door and stands in front of Willas, folding her arms so he can't try to hold her hand.

"If you are pregnant," he says, sounding small and uncertain, "Sansa, we can-"

"I'm not ready to have a baby," she says, and he looks like she's slapped him but she's so scared she can't worry about that. "I can't, Willas, I  _can't,_ I'm only twenty-three-"

She didn't notice herself doing it, but she's fisted her hands in her hair, and he stands up and untangles her fingers before wrapping his arms around her. He holds her so tight she can barely breathe, but that means she can't panic, either, and it helps.

"This is it, isn't it?" he says, very, very quietly. "For us."

And they shouldn't have to break up because this isn't supposed to be real, but it  _is,_ it's been real for  _months,_ and she hates herself so much that she can't help but cry again, fisting her hands in the back of his shirt as they wait out those three minutes.

She's not pregnant, and her bag feels very heavy with the few bits and pieces she's left in Willas' place since they started this  _mess_ when she leaves.

He calls her the next day, and she lets it go to voicemail. She feels like a coward, but she knows that if she hears his voice, she'll start thinking about a baby with curly brown hair and big hazel eyes, and that's enough to make her cry so hard she can't breathe.


	5. Then we crushed it, but it's in the past

Sansa avoids all the places Willas used to bring her on dates from the day of their break up. It hurts less that way, so she doesn't have to look at the corner booth in the Human Bean where he made her try all those weird coffees, or their bench by the duck pond in the park. She refuses to go to the opera, either, because she can't stand to sit there knowing Willas is probably in the Tyrell box, bored out of his mind but enduring it for the sake of his grandparents' charities.

She stops going to the theatre, and the cinema, and on the tour buses they started taking over the summer because they realised that they actually didn't know very much about the city's history, and she even stops going to the Museum of Natural History, just in case he's there. She can't risk it- no, she won't risk it, because the idea of seeing him and knowing that he doesn't feel the same hurts too much.

If he did feel the same, he would  _never_ have let her go so easily. She's sure of it. Even _Joffrey_ fought harder to keep her.

She throws herself into work because that's something that was kept away from Willas - she doesn't go into Jeyne's workshop much anymore, though, because Jeyne made Willas half a dozen suits over the past year and Sansa sat and watched him get fitted and she just can't go in there. Not now. Maybe not ever.

 

* * *

 

The invitations for the Lannister ball arrive four weeks in advance, and Sansa is inundated with dress orders - everyone from Mum to Cersei Lannister herself want one of Sansa's designs, and Sansa is happy to make all the dresses asked of her if only because Mum can't worry that she's moping if she's working non-stop.

She even accepts orders from Willas' mother and sister and sister-in-law, who all pointedly avoid even mentioning his name in front of her. She wonders if she's that obvious - that even his  _mother_ knows - and then she decides she doesn't care, because  _he_ let her walk away without even trying to hold her back. 

By the time the week of the ball arrives, she's working sixteen hour days and just about eating, sleeping in the tiny flat over the shop and not going home (she sleeps better at the shop, because she never woke up beside Willas there, and  _why does this hurt so much_ ). Even Arya has taken to dropping in and dragging her out for lunch, and even  _Rickon_ knows better than to ask if she's okay. The last time anyone did - it was Dad - she snapped at them so viciously that she shocked herself, never mind anyone else.

"Hey, Sansa?" Jeyne calls from her workshop across the hall. "Have you finished your own dress?"

Sansa knows that Jeyne finished Theon's suit two days ago, and she finished Jeyne's dress - periwinkle blue with semi-sheer sleeves that hide the worst of Jeyne's scars - just this morning, but as for her own dress, well.

Sansa has no intention of going to the ball. Partially because of what happened last year, and partially because she  _knows_ Willas will be there. The Tyrells always come out in force for things like this - she'd know, she made all the ballgowns this year - and she just can't face him, not in front of Joff and in front of the Lannisters  _and_ the Tyrells.

"I don't need a dress," Sansa calls back, not looking up from her sewing machine. "I'm not going this year."

She doesn't look up even when Jeyne, Cley,  _and_ Smalljon thunder to her door. She just keeps on sewing and wonders-

"This has to stop, Sansa," Smalljon says. "You never leave the damn workshop anymore, and it's all because of  _him._ Jesus, Stark, have you even seen the sky since Halloween?"

She ignores that, because it's rude and not true, and keeps on sewing. 

"Sansa, please," Cley tries. "We're worried about you - you've shut yourself away since Halloween, and you won't even talk about what happened between you and Willas-"

"I thought I was pregnant, we handled it badly, we broke up. There's not much to talk about, Cley."

She doesn't realise she's crying until Cley cuts the power to her sewing machine and Jeyne crams onto the stool beside her.

"We thought we were having a  _baby_ ," she manages. "For about five minutes, we thought we were having a baby, and then I just  _ran away!"_

They move into Smalljon's workshop, just to get her away from her sewing machine for a bit, and the whole stupid story comes out - Jeyne clucks disapprovingly when she tells them that it was fake, to start with, and Smalljon looks a little embarrassed when she tries to explain that it wasn't even the sex that was the problem, but by the end of it she's sobbing all over Cley's lovely suit, because even if she wasn't in love with Willas she misses her best friend  _so much._

"He must  _hate_ me," she chokes out, "I was so  _awful_ to him, as if it was nothing to do with him at all. How canI face him?"

 

* * *

He wonders why Mum and the girls chose to go to Sansa for their ballgowns, and hates that he knows they went to Sansa without even asking.

He shouldn't still be thinking about her, not when she made it clear that the very  _idea_ of starting a family with him repulsed her, but he can't help himself. He goes to all the places they used to go together, just in case he might run into her, but she's never there - never in the Human Bean, never in the natural history museum, never even in that godawful fish restaurant her mother's family owns that she loves so much. She won't answer his calls, she won't reply to his texts, he's even bloody well  _emailed_ her, but she won't talk to him.

He knows why, of course - he came on too strong the morning after Halloween, and it was exactly the wrong time. If he'd just taken that step back that morning, let her panic, then been there to  _comfort_ her, he might not have ruined everything.

Instead, he was mortifyingly obvious in how much the idea of having a baby with her appealed to him, and now... They're here. Or rather, he's here, and she's somewhere else, probably anywhere else as long as he's not there.

"Buck up, Will," Garlan says easily as they move out to the cars. "Your girl has to be at the bloody party - she's outfitted every woman on the guestlist, she can't miss her hour of glory!"

Except that Sansa is nowhere to be seen. Her business partners, her  _friends_ , are all here, and little pale Jeyne just shrugs uneasily when he begs her to tell him where Sansa is. 

"She's holed up in her little shithole of an apartment," Smalljon rumbles, swatting at Jeyne and Cley when they try to shush him. "No, this has gone on long enough - she's completely miserable. She'll not be expecting you, not tonight, so she'll let you in. If you go now you'll catch her before she goes to bed."

"Smalljon-" his green-haired girlfriend tries to say, but Willas is already gone. He has crutches in the car, which is good, he's going to need them. Sansa's flat is up a flight of stairs and the lift is always broken, so the wheelchair in the boot won't do him any good, and he doesn't think his leg will hold out with just his cane to support him.

 

* * *

 

"Just a minute!" Sansa calls, pulling on her fluffy dressing gown with flying piglets on it before going to answer the door. "God, calm down, I'll be right there-"

Willas is in full white tie, complete with white silk scarf over his gorgeously cut coat, and he has the crutches his father commissioned for his birthday in August tucked under his arms. He's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and she slams the door in his face.

Or at least, she tries to - he gets a crutch in the gap before she can manage it, and he fights with her until she carefully opens the door, afraid of hurting his leg.

"Why aren't you in your chair?" she asks, not sure what else to say. "Your leg must be hurting if you're using your crutches-"

"Lift's out," he says, and she's only ever seen him this pale once before. She doesn't want to think about that, though, so she guides him inside and pushes him down into the armchair, bolting the door behind them. "Sansa-"

"I'm sorry," she blurts out, dropping to her knees beside him. "I'm so sorry, Willas, I didn't- I never-"

"What do you have to apologise for?" he asks, looking completely bewildered. "Sansa, I- you did nothing wrong! Come here, sweetheart, come here-"

He takes her hands and guides her to stand in front of him, as close as he can pull her without standing up. It's so strange to be this close to him after so long, and he looks nearly as wretched as she feels.

"I know- I know that you don't want to see me," he says. "I understand why you've been avoiding me. I know I fucked up at Halloween, but I- I just wasn't expecting something so _real_. I know it was all a game to you, but I didn't see it like that anymore and I panicked, I did, and it was stupid and I hurt you and I'm  _sorry,_ Sansa. I'm so, so sorry."

"Why are you apologising?" she asks, kneeling down again so she can take his face in her hands. "You lovely, stupid man, why are you saying sorry?  _I'm_ the one who ran away without-"

She stops, something he said finally hitting her.

"What do you mean, you didn't see it like a game?"

 

* * *

 

"Surely you know," he says, "Sansa, how can you  _not_  know? I've been mad about you for  months! I haven't exactly been  _subtle_ about it!"

"But- but I thought that that was all part of the act! I never thought you  _meant_ any of it!"

He leans forward until his forehead is touching hers, wrapping his hands around her wrists. 

"I meant every word of it," he tells her firmly. "From - Jesus, from the morning after Trys and Myrcella's wedding, it's been coming on. Sansa, I  _love_ you. I was just too afraid of scaring you away before to tell you-"

She kisses him before he can say another word, and then she's crying, the same big, wet sobs she'd cried that awful morning after Halloween. She ends up sitting on his good leg, just like she has a hundred times before, and it's the best thing he's ever felt just to have her close after so long apart.

"Come to dinner with me, sweetheart," he says against her hair. "Let's start over, do things right."

She nods, and holds him tight, and they just sit there for a long time, him in his tails and her in her awful dressing gown and her tiny nightie.

He sleeps in the big recliner armchair that night, but with the bedroom door open so he can watch Sansa when he wakes up, and then, after she's made tea for them both in the morning, she digs out jeans and a jumper that he left behind at some stage, and she kisses him goodbye at the door.

She doesn't say she loves him, but he doesn't mind. He knows that she will.

 

* * *

 

**DATE #1**

"I thought we might take in the natural history museum," he says idly, waiting for her by the fountain and so bundled up against the cold that she almost didn't know him. "What do you think?"

"Warm," she muses,  perching on his good knee as they finalise their plans. "Easily accessible by wheelchair... And they do that  _amazing_ cheesecake in the coffee shop."

"Or," he says, "I have a table booked at that Italian restaurant you love."

She smiles and throws her arms around his neck, so  _happy_ because their favourite Italian is the most private public place she's ever been and that means they can talk more. They've talked every day for the past week, but always on the phone, and it's not the same.

"Come on then, love," she says. "I can already smell the tiramisu."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from 'Geronimo' by Sheppard.
> 
> Hope everyone enjoyed :D


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